Dorathen Better Late Then Never

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Howlin Wolf One of the most common ways for unhappy people to lash out at what they perceive to be an 'unfair' world, is to set themselves up as a saviour, and claim that everybody else just doesn't understand.Meanwhile, Werner Herzog is on hand, in his measured, rational manner, to assure us that there are no such things as saviours... and that nature is neither fair nor unfair. Nature is untamed, and cannot be ordered in a manner that mollifies our fears.It's Amie who I really feel sorry for... (aside from the poor bears who didn't ask for such an intrusion, of course!)

flavia_cj I must say that I had never heard of this guy until three days ago. Well, I'm Brazilian and Timothy Treadwell is completely unknown in my country (although I believe he must be famous in the United States). Then as I heard of him? To summarize: the internet. I was on youtube watching a video of the naturalist Casey Anderson playing with a brown bear named Bella. So I was reading the page comments, and I saw someone to comment in irony tone: "Don't be another Timothy Treadwell." This immediately aroused my curiosity. Who is this guy? When searching on Google, I found the biography of this man, a supposed passionate naturalist by bears in Alaska, who died tragically eaten by a bear in 2003, along with his girlfriend. Only this information impressed me, and when I found out they had made a documentary about his life and his filming, of course I wanted to watch the film. Well, after finishing seeing "The Grizzly Man" last night, I leave here my main impressions:I can understand the love of Timothy by nature and by the bears, because I also love nature, I also love bears - they are really impressive, beautiful and majestic creatures. But one thing is you love and admire something, another thing is you dangerously invade the wild space, ignoring the natural laws, and ignoring the true nature of bears and their true human nature. Although he recorded impressive scenes, such as the grand struggle of male bears by a female, which show to us the immense power of these animals, Timothy's recklessness and narcissism are evident. Philosophically speaking, I disagree with Timothy and with the Herzog director's view of what is Nature. I don't see nature with the naive and childish view that everything is harmony, peace and beauty, but I don't have this depressing view that everything is pure chaos and sheer destruction. I think the nature is a mixed and combination of both. Yes, I see moments of destruction, cruelty and suffering in it, but I also see moments of beauty, joy and harmony. I think the question is have the wisdom to know, to study and to understand the beautiful and the ugly at the same time.For me, the documentary worked as an unintended comedy. There are sad moments, as the moment when Herzog heard the tape recording when Timothy and his girlfriend were attacked, but most of the time, I found myself crying laughing. The part where Timothy is in ecstasy for see a bear poop is hilarious. The part where a interviewed criticizes him without mercy saying that the bears think him like a mentally retarded also made me laugh. Undoubtedly, Timothy Treadwell was a very bizarre dude, but their relatives and friends are also unintentionally comic figures. I mean, the mother and father, his ex-girlfriend, the "platonic" friend, and the mustache guy in the helicopter who found his remains are creatures as eccentric as Timothy. The only person who seemed more normal next him was Amie, after all, she was afraid of bears and not approached them so dangerously. Unfortunately she hardly appears and remains unknown to us. In fact, this film is not about bears, but about a bizarre dude called Timothy Treadwell.

turnsfire This is not a documentary, but a belittling of a man whom Herzog did not agree with, who can no longer defend himself, and a conscious effort to lead viewers to do the same. This is a movie about Timothy Treadwell's death. It is about Werner Herzog taking the life work of a man and twisting it completely away from what the man originally wanted, in order to paint his own narrow-minded viewpoint that nature is a cruel place where man does not belong.Sadly, this is the exact opposite of what Treadwell wanted to come from his tapes, and both Palovak and Herzog should feel deeply ashamed for the creation of this film. The best part of this movie is Treadwell himself (i.e. in the opening scene) and all of the footage he takes, though he is given no credit for it. Treadwell's 6 minute death constitutes only .0002% of the time he spent in the wilderness. And it is that 6 minutes of failure that Herzog so expertly leads the viewer to focus on, leaving the overwhelmingly vast majority of his successes untold.Herzog wants the viewer to think of Treadwell as a madman, someone who "crossed a line," and from the reviews, his obvious tactic worked. Herzog, a film director, spews his psychoanalysis of Treadwell throughout the entire film. He even features an interview with someone who goes as far as to wonder if Treadwell was "mentally retarded." If Treadwell was mentally retarded and crossed the line, you can be rest assured he would have died the first night, week, or month he was there. Instead, Treadwell produced the most documented evidence in the history of man that human and bear can coexist peacefully for long periods of time. 35,000 hours is a long time for a food item to be at the mercy of nature's apex land predator. Dare I say that two humans in each others presence for 35,000 hours might eventually kill each other for even less reason than a bear would? At least the bear was hungry.The scene with the coroner is flat out creepy and has no place in a movie about Tim's life. The scene of Herzog listening to the tape has no place in the movie either, is self-gratifying, and reminds me of someone gloating to other children that he got to see something they didn't. It is incredibly disrespectful to show himself listening to the tape of Treadwell's death, and then saying that nobody else should ever hear it. I cannot even fathom why that was included in the movie other than to shift the focus to the director, rather than subject, once again.Herzog claims in later interviews he didn't want to make a snuff film yet that is basically what he did anyway. He features a long winded description from the coroner of exactly what happens on the tape. Was it really necessary to include the details of what happens when a bear decides to eat a man alive? Is that what Treadwell would have wanted his documentary to be about? Herzog's slow speaking, condescending voice constantly interjecting is irritating at best, ruinous at worst. He interjects his viewpoint about nearly everything he shows Treadwell doing, and at that, he only picks the most unflattering scenes of Treadwell, such as when he gets vitriolic about the park rangers. The viewer can be rest assured that Herzog himself has never had an outburst of anger. The inclusion of Treadwell's most private video recordings are incredibly disrespectful. Do not for a second think Treadwell would have included them in his own movie, and it is akin to bullying a dead person that Herzog decides to expose them. And strangely, Herzog was in one of the most densely populated bear areas in the world, yet makes no attempt to film a bear himself. The most tragic thing to me is that it was Jewel Palovak who Treadwell left in possession of his life's work, and that she chose such a biased producer to make the video. Her decision to have Herzog make the movie shows that she was not a friend at all. Let me leave you with a quote from Treadwell to Palovak: "If I die, if something happens to me, make that movie. You make it. You show 'em." Way to go, Palovak. You really found someone to show 'em.

MartinHafer A decade ago, the news reported that some guy who loved to film Grizzly bears was eaten by the creatures. This didn't surprise me but I thought it was an awfully sad story. Little did I know that the guy who was killed (along with a companion) was a complete idiot--and his death shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone, much like the death of the Crocodile Hunter. You don't take unnecessary and insane risks around extremely dangerous animals--and they really don't have too many creatures on Earth that are as dangerous and mean as these animals! Yet, Timothy Treadwell reveled in getting extremely close and even touching wild bears--and videotaping his exploits. Well, he got his wish...one of the bears ending up eating him and his partner and it was actually recorded by his cameras. Fortunately, filmmaker Werner Herzog did NOT reveal this footage but tries to reconstruct what occurred and investigate this strange man and those who knew him. How did he morph from a seemingly normal kid to an alcoholic to a nature lover? And, did he really end up helping the bears...and did they even need helping?This is a fascinating documentary and that doesn't surprise me, as Herzog's best work (despite fame for his feature films) are his documentaries. He takes a simple story and breathes life into it and investigates far deeper than you might find with other documentarians. I think some of this is because although Herzog is troubled by some aspects of Treadwell and criticizes Treadwell, he also seems to feel a certain respect and admiration for him as well---particularly Treadwell's very exacting and personal style of making films.While some might find the film overly long (it features LOTS of video of Treadwell talking on and on and on), I appreciate that it DOES give so much. It helps the viewer to construct an interesting portrait of the guy--a person who seems to be a combination of a narcissist and with an addictive personality and a death wish as well as having a tenuous grasp on reality. This reality distortion is more and more pronounced as the film progresses. He seems to think he is somehow THE man to protect the species and no one else can--though the bears in the film apparently were NOT at risk and didn't need protecting. He also is so into being around the bears that he seems to lose perspective in other ways--such as practically wetting himself in excitement when he finds fresh bear poo and plays with it! Truly a bizarre man--and the film does a great job of putting this across to the viewer. Overall, a strangely compelling and strange film.